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Comment by drdec | Hacker News Reader

I think that PostgreSQL itself is great. However, the developer client tools (pgAdmin) leave something to be desired. The old pgAdmin3 was fine, if lacking bells and whistles. The new pgAdmin4 however, was not very good last time I tried it [1]. It was implemented as a client/server web application and had frequent issues.

Can anyone recommend a good client for PostgreSQL?

[1] - I see that there have been some new releases in 2020 so I ought to check on them. The version I tried earlier was 4.11.

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DBeaver: https://dbeaver.io/

Native cross-platform and works across dozens of databases with lots of features.

Another option is Jetbrains DataGrip: https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/

Thank you for this - my team and I have been looking for a replacement to PgAdmin for quite some time now and this fits the bill exactly. Two features I thought we were going to have to give up when moving from MySQL to PG where ERD management in-app and the ease of use of MySQL workbench.

Dbeaver is the answer. It is good enough that I no longer miss pgadmin 3.

I've inadvertently become the pgadmin 3 "LTS" maintainer. A release of pgadmin 3 that was altered to support 10.x was previously provided by BigSQL. I forked it on GitHub to add TCP keepalive on client connections. At some point after that BigSQL removed the original repo. Apparently I was the only one that had forked it prior to removal, so now the few vestigial users in the world still using it are forking my fork. One has even patched it to work with 11.x, although they've offered no pull requests.

so do you consider your pgadmin fork maintained or not? where is it?

No. I'm making no effort to maintain it. If a pull request appeared I'd probably accept it. https://github.com/allentc/pgadmin3-lts

Amusingly it appears the previous maintainer, BigSQL, has since forked my repo.

I tried DataGrip many times but kept coming back to DBeaver. It's just easier IMHO.

DataGrip is a bit intimidating at first, but much more powerful.

What features does it have over DBeaver?

First thing that comes to mind is code completion, which is unmatched in any other tool in the space.

IMO Java is not native anywhere.

I prefer to use HeidiSQL running on Wine.

It's more native than an Electron app.

If you're on a mac, then Postico is pretty good (https://eggerapps.at/postico/).

Otherwise, TablePlus is cross-platform (and supports multiple DBs) https://tableplus.com/

Agreed that PgAdmin is awful.

TablePlus is awesome on MacOS, but not so much on Windows.

I use TablePlus for quickly looking stuff up when I'm working on my MacBook, but I use DataGrip when I'm working on Linux.

I was on the fence about giving TablePlus a go. Why isn't it awesome on Windows? I'm very interested.

I use Postico and agree it's pretty great overall. There's some odd behavior in the SQL editor that sometimes bites me when I'm pasting from my code editor (VSCode), where whitespace sometimes picks up some kind of invisible character or something that makes the query invalid. I have no idea how to reproduce it but it can really break my flow when I hit it. Other than that I've been pretty pleased with it.

If I didn't already have a Postico license I'd definitely be looking at TablePlus.

I've been using JetBrain's DataGrip. So it's not free, but if I weren't already grandfathered into a good JetBrains package, I'd probably be willing to subscribe to it à la carte and pay for it out of pocket. It's the only JB product I still use consistently after switching from WebStorm to vscode.

Link for convenience: https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/

I use DBeaver: https://dbeaver.io

It's not specific to PostgreSQL, it's universal.

Azure Data Studio (don't be put off by Azure, it runs locally) has a decent extension for PostgeSQL.

https://github.com/microsoft/azuredatastudio#azure-data-stud...

HeidiSQL: https://www.heidisql.com/

Bonus — it also works for MySQL/MariaDB, MS SQL, and sqlite.

I use http://valentina-db.com, it also have a free version and support others dbs, like sqlite and sql server.

I tried it for some weeks.

It crashes constantly. Went back to HeidiSQL.

https://omnidb.org/en/

If you're willing to pay, worth checking out Aqua Data Studo (https://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio), otherwise DataGrip is also fantastic.

I wonder if there is any client that has a halfway decent visualization of RLS policies. Last time I checked, pgAdmin didn't, and Postico, which I use day-to-day, doesnt' (at all).

https://tableplus.com/

Supports many databases

I prefer using Adminer or Azure Data Studio (with pg extension)

pgAdmin4 is not that bad, I'm using it every day

I have tried to give pgAdmin4 a chance three times, and every time it was an exercise in frustration. It is unstable and awful from the UX perspective.

Since then I'm sticking with psql for administration and with DataGrip for more involved DB development, and that works very well.

Have you tried anything else? It's really not great.

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